A Reprobate mind is a mind destitute of judgment.
Rom 1:28 Furthermore, because they did not think it worthwhile to retain the full knowledge of God, God gave them over to degraded minds to perform acts that should not be done. (ISV)
Rom 1:28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; (KJV)
The 3 Structural levels of a paradigm (Romans 1:18 – 32)
Macro level (~assumptions | metaphysical)
Rom 1:19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God himself has made it plain to them.
Rom 1:20 For since the creation of the world his invisible attributes-his eternal power and divine nature-have been understood and observed by what he made, so that people are without excuse.
Rom 1:21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him. Instead, their thoughts turned to worthless things, and their ignorant hearts were darkened.
A cognizance of the basic assumption to the question “what can be understood is required” | the assumption of what can be known. It forms the basis of the paradigm.
Meso level (~how to obtain the information| Epistemology)
Rom 1:25 They exchanged God’s truth for a lie and worshipped and served the creation rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
A conception of epistemological knowledge acquisition | a line of thinking
Micro Level (~how to apply the knowledge | Praxis)
how the world is understood. An ethic for living (praxis)
Rom 1:26 For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions. Even their females exchanged their natural sexual function for one that is unnatural.
Rom 1:27 In the same way, their males also abandoned the natural sexual function of females and burned with lust for one another. Males committed indecent acts with males, and received in themselves the appropriate penalty for their perversion.
Rom 1:28 Furthermore, because they did not think it worthwhile to retain the full knowledge of God, God gave them over to degraded minds to perform acts that should not be done.
Rom 1:29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, quarreling, deceit, and viciousness. They are gossips,
Rom 1:30 slanderers, God-haters, haughty, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to their parents,
Rom 1:31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.
Paradigm Shift
Social scientists have adopted the phrase ‘paradigm shift’ to denote a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality.
TO change a paradigm one must address the three levels that are mentioned above. Address the assumptions that are made as the basis of the current paradigm.
Redefine how to acquire knowledge in the new paradigm as opposes to the present.
present a new ethic (code of living)
If one is to embrace all three is the new paradigm then a shift will take place from the old to the new.
